Oh, what a year!

On this, the last day of 2009, I would love to write something meaningful to celebrate such an eventful year in our lives. Our family celebrated milestones, said good-bye to loved ones, welcomed a new life, faced challenges and made it through big changes.

But I’m a little too sleep-deprived to come up with the words to properly pay tribute to such an amazing year. So, instead, I’m joining other bloggers in wrapping up the year bloggy-style.

Here, I give you, the first line of every post of every month from 2009. I was surprised at how well this really did re-cap the whole year.

I would learn later that there was a reason I didn’t set any goals for 2009. I would find out in a few months that all things “Emily” would be set aside, and I would be called upon to take on some roles I would not have considered on my own.

The highlight of February was our vacation to Acapulco for the Discovery Toys incentive trip. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was a trip we won’t soon forget. It also was significant for me because this would be the first time in the last five years I made the choice not to set a goal to earn the incentive trip, making our past trip that much more special.

While we were in Mexico, we also lost my Grandma Dot, who had been a very special influence in my life.

How could I recap the year without mentioning all of my posts about my favorite TV show, Lost? This was one in which I had reached the height of confusion about what was actually happening last season.

I celebrated my 40th birthday in April with more celebrations than any one person should be allowed to have for herself. And then my girlfriends topped it all off by surprising me with this one the first weekend in May. I am blessed!

I also got serious in May, blogging about the topics of autism and allergies.

And then there was June, the month in which I revealed what had really been on my mind the past few months. I was pregnant. We were going to home school. And I started blogging about my advanced maternal age.